No sub­stance

This is re­gard­ing the web story "Andhra Pradesh light­ning strikes were not record break­ing" (9 May, 2018). The an­swers by Chief Me­te­o­rol­o­gist Mark Hoekzema and Jeff Lapierre from the Mary­land-based Earth Net­works have no sub­stance. Their knowl­edge about In­dia, espe­cially Andhra Pradesh, seems very lim­ited. I am 67 years old, and from my ex­pe­ri­ence in Nel­lore town, I found this light­ning was not from ages, but fairly re­cent (5-10 years). Also, the SMS warn­ing is good. It comes around 30 min­utes be­fore light­ning strikes, though I can­not vouch for their ac­cu­racy. By word of mouth, they are fairly ac­cu­rate. Don't de­pend on for­eign scientists who have not done spe­cific study in a re­gion in In­dia.